BMW i Ventures and Toyota AI Ventures Co-lead Seed Round; Will Help May
Mobility Expand Team and Serve More U.S. Cities this Year

February 26, 2018 07:30 AM Eastern Standard Time

ANN ARBOR, Mich.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May Mobility, the first autonomous vehicle company to replace existing
transportation systems with its fleets of self-driving micro-shuttles,
today announced that BMW i Ventures and Toyota AI Ventures have joined
its investor-base, co-leading its seed round. This funding will allow
May Mobility to launch new deployments across the country. Other
investors include Maven Ventures, SV Angel, Tandem Ventures, Trucks
Ventures, and YCombinator.

“We have demonstrated that our technology is highly capable, that riders
love our vehicles, and that customers recognize the value of what we can
provide,” said Edwin Olson, CEO and co-founder. “Developers and cities
know self-driving transit is the future, and our fast-growing team of
top computer scientists and roboticists have developed solutions to some
of the most difficult transportation problems.”

May Mobility launches commercial operations this year, just over a year
after the company’s launch. An October 2017 pilot with Detroit-based
Bedrock was a key milestone in demonstrating the readiness of their
technology for real-world operations.

“Vehicles and programs of all sorts are being announced or tested and
trialed, but May Mobility is actually solving today’s transportation
issues with self-driving vehicles on real city streets today,” said Uwe
Higgen, Managing Partner at BMW i Ventures. “We invested in the team
because they’re reducing the complexity of the problem to actually
deliver autonomous mobility now, instead of years from now, and the
feedback loop will be invaluable to the future of the industry.”

May Mobility’s team has deep experience in autonomous vehicles, with
veterans from the DARPA Urban Challenge, the University of Michigan,
Ford, General Motors and Toyota. The team combines both technical stars
with business development and operations experts.

“We look to invest not just in the brightest ideas and teams in
mobility, but in the best businesses,” said Jim Adler, Managing Director
of Toyota AI Ventures. “We love that May Mobility is actively applying
great technology to improve the quality of life in communities
throughout the country. But it’s just as important that they’re signing
paying customers that prove that the unit economics work.”

May Mobility combines their own autonomous vehicle stack, leveraging
over a decade of technology development, with a full-service business
model aimed at providing transportation services on a community scale.
The result makes it easy for buyers -- from business districts and
educational campuses to municipalities or residential areas -- to solve
their transportation problems with autonomous vehicles that outperform
traditional approaches on a wide variety of metrics. May Mobility brings
communities closer together with fleets of self-driving vehicles that
make short distance travel safe, personal, and effortless.

“Communities everywhere are facing transportation challenges, and we’re
ready to solve them with our fully-managed, right-sized microtransit
service,” said Alisyn Malek, COO and co-founder of May Mobility. “Our
new investors will allow us to deploy to more communities even more
quickly, and to grow our engineering and operations capability to
deliver the best customer experience. It’s a great time to join the
team; the demand is huge and the potential impact immeasurable.”

For more information about May Mobility's products, technology, or
career opportunities, visit http://maymobility.com/.

About May Mobility

May Mobility brings communities closer together, with fleets of
self-driving vehicles that make short distance travel safe, personal,
and effortless. From business districts to educational campuses to
residential areas, May provides a fully-managed, right-sized
microtransit service that helps people engage more fully in the places
where they live and work, while helping make the streets safer and
supporting healthier local economies. Its pilot in downtown Detroit was
the first successful self-driving vehicle to replace an existing
transportation solution on city streets. May’s founders bring
unparalleled expertise in academia, innovation and the auto industry,
counting University of Michigan’s APRIL lab, MIT, the DARPA Urban
Challenge, Ford, GM, GM Ventures, and Toyota among recent experience.
Their goal is to realize a world where self-driving cars will reduce the
need for individual car ownership, encourage better land use and foster
more vibrant, livable communities. The company is backed by BMW i
Ventures, Toyota AI Ventures, Maven Ventures, SV Angel, Tandem Ventures,
Trucks Ventures, and YCombinator.